


Apples and Honey

by crossingwinter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fake Dating, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Judaism, Rosh Hashanah, THERE’S ONLY ONE BED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-23 04:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20886041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: When Ben catches wind that his mother is planning to foist a potential girlfriend on him when he comes home for Rosh Hashanah, he takes matters into his own hands: specifically, he runs to Rey and asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeaceBlessingsPeyton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeaceBlessingsPeyton/gifts).

“She  _ what _ ?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger.” He could hear the amusement in Jannah’s voice. 

“She can’t do that.”

Jannah snorted into the phone. “I thought that’s what Jewish mothers  _ did _ . Wasn’t I on her list of potential wives for you?”

“You were on my dad’s list,” Ben pointed out. Even from the tender age of three, Ben had known that nothing would make his dad happier—no matter how much he protested the fact—than if he married Jannah Calrissian. For one thing, it would sort out the ownership issue of the fucking car he and Lando were always grousing about.  _ Just give it to the grandkids.  _ He had spent most of his childhood thrown together with Jannah whenever their dads were up to something, and they’d been told firmly  _ this stays between us, kids, right?  _ more times than he’d understood at that age. (How his father never went to prison, Ben still didn’t know.) 

The fates had had other plans, however, and Jannah had been most decidedly not interested in men starting at puberty and that had been that. But they still managed to do one another solids, the way they’d learned from their dads. Like now, when she was telling him that his mother was planning on ensnaring him in a High Holy Day trap and setting him up with someone who worked in her office at her Rosh Hashanah shindig.

Ben groaned into the phone. “Thanks,” he muttered.

“You need some rye there, Solo?”

“What makes you think I’m not already having some?”

“I’d say it might not be too bad, but we both know I’d be lying,” Jannah said, not sounding even a little bit consoling. In fact, she sounded—

“Glad I can amuse you, at least.”

“You owe me for those years you were a Republican and I still didn’t drop your ass. In fact, you’re going to be owing me for that for at least another thirty years.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember that verse in ashamnu.”

He lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The  _ last _ fucking thing he wanted to do was go and  _ avoid all human contact  _ at his mother’s Rosh Hashanah shindig. Not that he particularly wanted to  _ make _ human contact with anyone, but if he tried to avoid human contact, then he’d get an earful about why he was trying to avoid human contact and why come to the party at all? 

_ Because it’s what dad would have wanted, Mom. You know that. _

He sighed.

It was bad enough that his mom talked about his love life the way some people talked about Fantasy Football—constantly checking, imagining rosters of potential players, hoping that this year they’d make the finals. He shouldn’t be surprised that his mother was trying this. In fact, he was surprised she hadn’t done it years before. (He supposed his having been a Republican for a while was a deterrent for most of the young women in her circle for a few years.) But that certainly didn’t make it any more welcome. 

And then the solution hit him, so bright and brilliant that he couldn’t believe he didn’t think of it literally years before.

* * *

Naturally his mother would derail his plan.

He should have expected it.

Rey had been game. He hadn’t even had to bribe her with the baby photo album that his mother still had despite his best efforts to have it destroyed. She’d just smiled and said, “Sure,” and when he’d asked why, she’d shrugged and said, “You’d do that for me, wouldn’t you?”

“Pretend to be your girlfriend at your family’s holiday party?

“Well,” she’d said, rolling her eyes. “No, because of no family—” which had made him feel like a dick because he should know better than to mention stuff like that by now because sure, she seemed to brush it off, but he also knew there would never be a day where it didn’t hurt her, “but at least...I don’t know...you get what I mean.”

He didn’t, really, because it wasn’t the same thing—him pretending to be Rey’s boyfriend and her pretending to be his girlfriend. Because Rey’s Rey and he’s...well, him.

But then again, he had never really understood why Rey liked him. It was sort of a weird twist of how they were, especially given that she’d met him during his Republican phase and she’d really hated him then. But now she gave him that wide smile of hers, and said she’d pretend to be his girlfriend at his mother’s Rosh Hashanah shindig.

At least, it was  _ supposed _ to just be the shindig.

“Why don’t you bring her to services?” his mother had asked him, ruining everything. 

“Do we even have a ticket for her?”

But his mother, president of the shul that she was, hand-waved that. “I’ll sort it out. Why not?”

“Mom, if you come on too strong, you’re going to scare her off,” Ben had tried in what he had considered to be a stroke of genius. “And then where will the Jewish grandkids come from?”

“Alternatively, better stake my claim as early as possible. I’m having  _ Jewish _ grandkids.” And for the life of him, he hadn’t known if she was joking or not.

So he called Rey. 

“Look, you don’t have to do this,” he told her. “I just can’t not invite you and say I did because my mom will know, she just will.”

“I’d love to,” Rey smiled into her phone. He could hear that smile of hers. It was part of what he liked about it so much; that it permeated her and he could hear it, as well as see it. “I’ve never been to any Jewish services before. I’m sure it will be interesting.”

He didn’t know how to tell her that it meant his mother would be expecting a signed ketubah within a year because somehow, he didn’t think that would impress upon her the seriousness of the situation he now found himself in. She’d sounded excited at the idea of going.

So he’d told his mother that they wouldn’t be at the erev services, but that they’d get in that night and go with her to shacharit.

“Shacharit?” his mother said over the phone and if you could hear eyes narrowing, he’d hear her eyes narrowing. “Who are you and what have you done with my son?” Her son, who maybe made it to Torah services, even on yontif when you really should be getting there before Torah services. 

“Rey wakes up early,” he said, making a face after he spoke, because sure— _ he _ meant that he had learned this from years of waking up at eight in the morning to find that Rey had replied to his midnight texts at five thirty even though she didn’t have to be at work until nine, but he knew his mother would hear that he woke up to an empty bed and a smile in the kitchen when he came out for coffee.

“Well then,” his mother said after a pause and he could definitely hear a Cheshire cat smile now. “I’ll see you for shacharit.”

* * *

“Right, she won’t say anything directly about it, but she will be plotting our marriage,” Ben told her when they stopped for dinner at a diner on the way north. “And she’ll definitely—”

“Relax, will you? I can handle it,” Rey replied.

“Yeah, but you’re going to need to convince her—”

“That I like and care about you? Good thing I do so that shouldn’t be hard.”

“That you’ve already had sex with me at least once,” Ben cut in. “Because she won’t believe that we haven’t if I’m bringing you home for yontif.”

“Yontif?”

“Holy Day,” Ben translated and Rey nodded. 

“So,” Rey grinned at him, “What kind of sex have we had then?”

Ben took a sip of water, glaring at her. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You want me to tell your mom that I like touching your—”

“No,” he huffed. “But like...I don’t know. It’s not alien to you?” He didn’t know why it ended up a question but it did and Rey smiled and her hand reached across the diner’s table to take hold of his. Almost at once, he felt himself calm down.

“I think I can convince your mother that I like you enough, ok? So would you chill? Or else it won’t be  _ me _ giving up the ghost—it’ll be you, and she probably has that young colleague of hers waiting in the wings in case I’m too shiksa for her.”

Ben swallowed. From anyone else, he would think that they weren't taking it seriously. God knows if he were in this position with, say, Jannah, she’d be taking the shit out of him at every stage of the way. And sure, Rey was teasing him. But all the same, it felt like a supportive teasing, like whenever his mom was getting anxious about something and his dad rubbed her back and said  _ relax, will you?  _ Rey didn’t rub his back, but she did take his hand when he was nervous. She always had.

_ Girlfriends do that,  _ he thought idly.  _ They take your hand when they’re nearby. That’s good body language we already have down. _

He gave Rey a tentative smile, and she smiled back. He liked her smile a lot. It always made him feel better about everything. 

* * *

The light in the entryway was on but the lights in his mother’s study and the living room were off when Ben parked his car in the driveway. He hadn’t expected his mother to wait up for them. She had lost the habit of waiting up when his father had come home too late one too many times.

He glanced to his right. Rey was asleep, snoring lightly with her head resting against the window. She had made a valiant effort to stay awake for most of the drive, but it was midnight now and that’s about nine hours past her bedtime. Gently, he nudged her arm and she made a little noise in her throat. “Wha—?” 

She opened her eyes.

“We’re here,” he told her and she nodded, and yawned, and got out of the car. Ben led her into the house he’d grown up in, up the stairs and that was when he froze. His mother didn’t snore, but Uncle Luke sure did, and Uncle Luke was definitely snoring in the guest bedroom. Which was how Ben came to two realizations at once. The first was that he’d made the assumption that Rey would sleep in the guest room and hadn’t prepared himself, much less her, for the fact that that might not happen; and the second was that his bed was barely big enough for  _ him _ much less both of them.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered and Ben glanced down at her. Her eyes were puffy from sleep and she’d probably pass out again the moment her head touched the pillow, right? 

“Just—I didn’t think my uncle would be here. I thought we’d have more space.” And he turned and pushed open the door to his bedroom. It was a double bed, which had been luxurious for him when he’d been eight and had been not even big enough to starfish in properly once he’d gotten to ninth grade. But Rey didn’t balk at the sight of it. She just shuffled into the room, kicking off her shoes, and grabbing the washcloth from the pile of towels his mother had left out for them. 

“Where’s the bathroom?”

He showed her, and she took her backpack with her and Ben was sure she’d come back in pajamas. Which gave him about thirty seconds to change into his. Flannel pants, a t-shirt, nothing too special. Rey came back from the bathroom two minutes later and her face split into a grin.

“What?” Ben asked.

“We match.”

They did. Both grey t-shirts, both red and blue flannel pajama bottoms. 

“Don’t let my mom see that,” he groaned, brushing past her and going into the bathroom. He could hear her huffing a quiet laugh behind him as he brushed his teeth and took out his contact lenses. By the time that he returned to the bedroom, she was already under the blankets, her eyes closed, her breathing steady. But she wasn’t asleep yet because she wasn’t snoring and Ben steeled himself.

It’s just a bed. Just  _ his _ bed with one of his friends. Who was wearing pajamas that matched his and was pretending to be the first girlfriend he’d ever brought home. Not a big deal.

“You getting in?” Rey asked, her eyes still closed.

So he did. 

This bed was  _ not _ big enough for two people. Or at least, not big enough for two people if one of them was Ben. No matter which way he tossed and turned, he was always touching Rey in some way. His legs and arms against hers, his butt against her when he turned on his side, his knees knocking into her when he tried the other way. 

“Ben, it’s fine,” she laughed quietly.

“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he muttered.

“Yeah, and I don’t suppose it’s possible that body heat is comfortable and comforting after years on my own, is it?”

He swallowed.

Too real.

So he curled up on the side he usually slept on, his knees pressed against her legs, doing his best to calm his breathing down.

It wasn’t long before Rey’s snores filled the room and at least she wasn’t as tense about all this as he was. 

Did she really find his presence comforting?

She implied that, sometimes. Not just now, other times—when she texted him in the middle of the night because her anxiety hit her hard, or when she’d just had a  _ bad _ day in her lab. But that was Ben as a friend, not Ben as a warm body in the bed next to her.

In her sleep, she made a little noise in the back of her throat like the one she’d made in the car and for a moment he thought she might be waking up again but no—no she was just turning onto her side, shifting, her back to his chest now, wiggling her—oh.

Ben took a deep breath.

Her rear was pressed right into the curve of his hips, right against his—yeah. She made another little contented sound and then her light snores filled his bedroom once again.

Ok.

This was fine. 

She’d said it was comforting, and she’d done it in her sleep, which meant it had to be comfortable, right? His heart was pounding as though trying to break free from his ribcage as he shifted his arm out from between them so that it draped over her hip. She was so warm. So so warm. 

Ben was not a hugger. He didn’t do hugs, and the last time he’d actually slept with a woman was before his Republican phase, so he really,  _ really _ couldn’t remember the last time he’d done anything like this before. Even when he  _ had _ slept with people, he hadn’t been the type to snuggle. It had always felt...sticky. But it didn’t feel sticky now, maybe because he and Rey haven’t actually done anything to make it sticky.

And his dick twitched against her ass because the mental image of—no.  _ No _ . She was his  _ friend _ . A good friend. A friend whose smile meant the world to him. He wasn’t going to do  _ anything _ to fuck that up, so that dick of his—which had always had a mind of his own—had better get that memo right away.

He tried to focus on something else. Anything else. Rey’s head was tucked under his chin, and there was something soothing about her snores, something steady. In and out they went—not loud enough to be disturbing but oddly hypnotic.

His eyelids began to droop. 


	2. Chapter 2

He woke to an empty bed in the dim lighting of the morning. He glanced around his room. It was clean as a pin apart from his and Rey’s stuff. Rey’s pajamas were folded neatly on top of his dresser.

Ben got dressed and went to the bathroom. He peed, shaved, brushed his teeth, and then went down to the kitchen.

He heard them before he saw them—laughing quietly. 

“He was very nervous about it,” Rey was saying. 

“Probably couldn’t tell if he was more afraid you’d say yes or no,” his mother replied. 

“Undoubtedly,” Rey chuckled. “He’s very tentative sometimes. It’s jarring.”

“Oh?”

“He goes from being this big loud wall of  _ don’t fuck with me  _ to being a positive teddy bear. It’s unbelievably unexpected.”

“I’m glad the teddy bear is coming back,” his mother smiled. “He was a very sweet boy. Puberty hit him hard.”

“Puberty hits everyone hard,” Ben groused as he rounded the corner into the kitchen.

“Hi there, teddy bear,” Rey winked at him and oh god, she had a fake petname for him. 

“Don’t call me that,” he grumbled at her.

“I think I will,” she told him. He went to the coffee machine and poured himself a mug before looking at both of them. They were watching him with knowing smiles on their faces. It was  _ weird _ .

“How much time do we have before shul?”

“We should get going once you finish your coffee,” Mom replied at once. Rey got to her feet. “Bathroom?” she asked.

“Just under the staircase,” Ben told her and she slipped out. “Go easy on her, mom,” Ben said the moment she was gone.

“I’m going easy on her!” Leia protested at once. “I just asked her how she slept, and if she had enough space in that bed of yours. 

“You couldn’t have given us the guest room? That bed’s tiny,” Ben replied. “Where’s Luke anyway?”

“He went for a run. Said he’d meet us there. And you know he can’t sleep on that mattress. It’s too soft for his back.” Ben heaved a long suffering sigh. “Besides,” and there was a wicked twinkle to his mother’s eyes. “I’d have thought that you might like being all snuggled up.”

“After a long car ride, might be nice to stretch my legs out a bit,” Ben grunted, taking another sip of coffee to hide whatever fear hadn’t been hidden by the grunt. His mother did the same, emptying her mug and bringing it to the sink. 

“Oh, before I forget, I volunteered you to blow shofar today.”

“You  _ what _ ?”

“Moshe Binks were supposed to be doing it, but old Jar Jar is not doing great so they’re down in Florida. Since I knew you were coming, I figured you could do it.”

“I haven’t blown shofar since high school.”

“You played the trumpet,” his mother shrugged.

“I haven’t played the  _ trumpet _ since high school.”

“You played the trumpet?” Rey asked and there she was, standing in the kitchen doorway, her eyes twinkling with delight in a way that made his mouth sort of go dry. 

“He wanted to be Louis Armstrong in fifth grade when they had to pick instruments.”

“I  _ still _ get more loving from the dumb, dumb, dummy than I ever got from you,” Ben glared at his mother. Shofar. Without practicing. Good fucking god. 

* * *

The sanctuary was nowhere near full when they arrived and Ben pounced on Rabbi Threepio to get the ram’s horn he’d apparently be blowing that morning. He went into the beit midrash to practice his  _ t’kiah _ s and was relieved, if begrudging, that his mother was right: he did remember how to do this. Perhaps he didn’t have the lip tension he’d had after playing eight years of trumpet, but he wouldn’t humiliate himself in front of everyone and their Jewish grandmothers. 

And Rey. 

Because sure, she’d be sweet about it, but he’d rather have her look at him like she was impressed and not like he was a dying begonia or something. 

He found them sitting near the front of the sanctuary. His mother was chatting with the Ackbars in the pew behind, while Rey interestedly thumbed through her program. She gave him her wide smile as he stepped past his mother and took the empty seat between the two of them. 

He hated that he had to sit at the front of the shul now that his mom was president. He had always valued the anonymity of being somewhere in the middle of the gathered group of daveners. But there wasn’t much he could do about that unfortunately. He shifted in his seat.

“Stop,” Rey murmured and he almost jumped out of his skin when her hand slid into his. 

“Stop what?” he asked, his voice a little high and a lot breathy. 

She gave him a look that said  _ you know what _ , except he didn’t really know what and behind him, he heard his mother pause mid-word and he knew without looking at her that she had noticed Rey’s hand in his, the way she had noticed his hand at the small of Rey’s back as they’d walked into the shul together, the way that she noticed  _ everything. _

“It’ll be ok,” Rey leaned over and whispered to him. “So stop fidgeting. That won’t make it go faster.”

“I’m not trying to make it go—”

“L’shanah tovah u’metukah,” Rabbi Threepio said into the microphone on the bimah, and the service began. 

It was standard, as far as Rosh Hashanah services went. If anything, it was running at a more clipped pace than usual. (“He got feedback that he was a bit long winded a few years back,” his mother noted when Ben made a noise of approval when they skipped four pages in the machzor.) It was not long at all before he was getting to his feet, the ram’s horn in his hands and suddenly he was aware of  _ just how many people  _ went to this synagogue. They had taken down the temporary wall that connected the synagogue to the community room, and as far as he could see, there wasn’t a single empty seat in the place. 

His throat went dry and he lifted the shofar to his lips and his eyes went to his mother to send her one last  _ this is your fault  _ before they slid sideways to Rey.

She was smiling at him—beaming, really. Her whole face was bright, her eyes soft and it made him start when Rabbi Threepio commanded him to blow the first  _ t’kiah _ . The sound of it filled the whole room and he let his eyes drop back to Rey before blowing the horn once more. Her smile had shifted, her eyes were impressed now, her mouth slightly open and he took a deep breath and prepared to blow the horn again.

When he returned to his seat, Rey leaned over and for one wild moment, he thought she was going to kiss his cheek. But no—she just whispered amidst the sound of the congregation moving on to the next portion of prayer, “That was really cool.”

“He has to do it four more times,” his mother said on his other side and Ben gave Rey a shy smile. She gave him one back and it happened so fast—too fast, really. Fast enough that he couldn’t really be sure that it happened.

But he could have  _ sworn _ that Rey’s eyes dipped down for less than a second to look at his lips.

* * *

“You want to head back?” Ben asked Rey during the oneg. She was chatting with Amilyn Holdo, who Ben knows was absolutely getting as much intel as she could for his mother about Ben’s new paramour but Rey had that look in her eyes like she needed to be rescued.

_ I don’t need to be rescued,  _ she had snapped at him when he’d referred to it that way once.  _ I can get out of conversations perfectly well on my own. _

Except she couldn’t really. She was terrible at it. She didn’t want to be rude, and had never had his mother’s diplomacy. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t be here at all, she would have politely declined pretending to be Ben’s girlfriend and having to use two of her PTO days to come up to stay with him in his too-small bedroom and make nice with half of the community who were all just  _ dying _ to know who was this shiksa Ben brought home.

So Ben slipped his arm around her waist, interrupting the conversation fully because  _ he _ certainly did not care if Amilyn Holdo thought he was rude after all these years.

“Am I hogging her?” Amilyn asked him with a bit of a cheeky smile.

“Yes,” Ben replied, still looking down at Rey. It wasn’t hard to pretend like she was his world in that moment, especially because there was such bright gratitude in her eyes. 

“Well, you get her all the time and I only get her during an oneg and Leia’s shindig tonight.”

“Oh, don’t fight over me,” Rey said, still looking up at Ben, and there was a brief pause because Ben couldn’t look away.

“A fight I’m sure I’d lose,” Amilyn said warmly and Ben’s head snapped around to look at her, but she was already walking over to the Ackbars, a satisfied smile on her face.

“I can get out of my own conversations,” Rey murmured to him. His hand was still at the small of her back, and hers had come to rest on his, and his attention returned to her completely. It was like they were the only ones in the room. 

“All evidence suggests otherwise,” he replied, his voice low and Rey smiled and she definitely did it this time, for longer than less than a second, her eyes dropping down to look at his lips. 

_ She’s faking it, remember? She’s pretending to be your girlfriend. This is for the benefit of everyone else watching. _

But his mouth had gone very dry.

“Your data set is incomplete,” she replied evenly. The hand not on the small of his back raised and a single finger pressed against his chest, just above his heart. “You don’t see me everywhere I go, Ben Solo.”

“Nah,” he replied and a smile toyed at his lips. “But I bet if I called Finn, he’d back me up.”

“If you called Finn, he’d be wondering why you called him.” The twinkle in her eyes… he needed very much to stop looking at her right now or else everything was going to go pear-shaped because he—a known fucker-up of things—would fuck this up, and then he’d lose Rey forever because he’d go and do something impulsive and stupid. 

But he couldn’t look away.

“Possibly,” he said after too long a pause. “But he’d agree with me and you know it.”

“Oh shut up.” But she was laughing, that lovely smile of hers shining on her face.

“You want to get out of this conversation right now, but you’re too polite,” he teased.

“Oh, you think I couldn’t get out of a conversation with you?” And vividly, he remembered her throwing her drink in his face and telling him he was a fascist before she stormed off. 

“Without causing a scene?”

Somewhere, during all of this, they had inched closer and closer together. His hand was still on her back, hers was still on his, and the other hand—the full hand, not just her pointer finger—was resting on his chest. She was standing so close that he thought he could feel the heat of her in the inches between them. 

He needed to get away from her before he pulled her to him, before he closed that space between them, which would give the shul enough fodder for gossip for at least eight months, and invariably break all of their hearts when, in a few weeks, he called to tell his mother that things were over with Rey but they were staying friends.

Friends.

He’d always considered himself lucky to count Rey as a friend. He didn’t have a lot of friends. It was basically just Jannah because she was grandfathered in. The others hadn’t really been friends in the end, he supposed. Colleagues, or acquaintances it was nice to talk about things with, but not…

Not Rey’s hand against his chest, her smile as she watched him blow shofar, the fact that she wasn’t letting him face home and his mother alone. 

And yet somehow,  _ friends _ suddenly felt unsatisfactory. It didn’t feel enough. Because after this weekend, he wasn’t going to be able to stand there for an awkwardly long pause with their hands on one another, looking into one another’s eyes as though the world didn’t exist beyond them.

His eyes began to sting and he looked away. “Want to head home?” he asked her quietly. “Rest before tonight?”

Rey looked around the room and Ben followed her gaze to see his mother and uncle chatting with Rabbi Threepio. Luke had shown up just before the Torah service, and had sat with the Ackbars in the row behind them. He had shaken Ben’s hand, but hadn’t made eye-contact, and had given Rey a curious and appraising look as they settled back down in their seats.

“They won’t miss us, will they?” she asked him. Her hand was still resting on his heart.

“Nah,” he replied. “Let’s go.”


	3. Chapter 3

In the five minute car ride from the shul to his mother’s house, it got more complicated.

“Thanks for inviting me.” Rey was looking out the window. The leaves were changing. There was a heat wave in the rest of the country, but the night before there had been a cold snap and the maple trees were slowly burnishing their usually green leaves yellow, orange, and red. 

Ben’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Thanks for doing this.”

“It’s been really lovely,” she said. “I enjoyed the service, and your mother is very sweet and everyone’s been so warm and welcoming.”

There was a wistfulness to her voice, and Ben gave her a sidelong glance. 

“You’re the kind of person they want to be welcoming to,” he said at last. “You tamed me, remember?”

Rey’s wistfulness turned to derision. “I remember yelling at you and you yelling back and then showing up six months later with your hat in your hands wanting to actually make a difference. I didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what they see, is it? That’s not what they think. Either way, though,” he continued quickly, recognizing the way that Rey was breathing, preparing a counterargument, “You’re kind, and warm, and interested. Of course they were going to like you.”

Rey didn’t reply and it wasn’t until they had pulled into the driveway of the house and were getting out of the car that he saw her dabbing away a loose tear out of the corner of her eyes. 

“Hey,” he said, rounding the car and pulling her into his arms. This was the sort of hug he was allowed to do, the sort of hug he’d done a hundred times before. Rey was crying, and he was going to hold her until she felt better because nothing on the planet was worse than Rey crying and friends helped each other through their shit.

“You just say the sweetest things sometimes,” she told him, her cheek pressed to his heart. “And you say them just like that—like they’re the truth and—”

“It  _ is _ the truth,” Ben growled. “You are all those things.”

“Yeah, but I’m not used to hearing it, am I?” Why was she pulling away?

His uncle’s car was pulling into the driveway, and Rey’s hand dropped to Ben’s as she waved and smiled at his mother and uncle as they got out. 

“Thought you’d be staying longer,” Ben said to his mother.

“And leave you two alone in my house? I learned my lesson years ago after you and Jannah broke my wedding china.”

“I’m not twelve anymore,” Ben grumbled. “And that was Jannah’s fault.”

“I doubt that very much somehow,” his mother replied acidly. That’s when she noticed Rey’s face. She didn’t say anything, but he saw the slight twitch downwards of her lips when she took in the tinge of red to Rey’s eyes. “In any event, there’s lots to do before tonight and I very much intend to put you both to work.”

“Please,” Rey said at once. “I want to be helpful.”

Which was how she ended up in the kitchen with his mother, making kugel and honey cake and Ben ended up in the dining room, moving furniture around because his mother’s Rosh Hashanah thing hadn’t been a proper sit-down meal in years.

“What if we put it over there?” he asked Luke, pointing to under the window. “That way it won’t block the door?”

His uncle only shrugged and together, they moved the heavy dining room table to where Ben had pointed, then moved two of the side boards, then brought in the cooler his dad had used for beer since Ben was a kid out of the garage and into the dining room, to be loaded with ice later. 

Luke barely said a word to him the whole time, didn’t even look at him where he couldn’t help it.

_ Get the fuck over it,  _ Ben thought angrily before following his uncle into the kitchen where his mother was putting the kugel in the oven and Rey was cutting up a few apples.

“They’ll brown if you cut them now,” Luke pointed out.

“These are for us now,” Leia replied. “We’ll cut the rest later. Honey’s over there,” she said, jerking her head towards the kitchen counter and Ben put some in a bowl for dipping.

“May you both have a sweet and blessed new year,” his mother smiled as they dipped the apple slices in their honey and Ben’s eyes, as they so often had this morning, slid to Rey.

The sign of her tears were gone, but there was a distance there he didn’t know how he felt about. The smile on her lips didn’t quite reach her eyes as she looked at him and he wished that there was a way he could talk to her without his mother and uncle now, find out what was really going on because Rey alone in her head—well it was only a few levels above Ben alone in his. And she did her best not to leave him alone in his head when things got rough. 

His mother drifted upstairs for a nap, Luke went out for a walk—still not looking at Ben—and the moment he heard both doors close, Ben said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Rey lied.

He raised his eyebrows and she rolled her eyes. “Oh shut up,” she muttered. “I’m just tired.”

“Do you want to take a nap?”

“I don’t want to hog your bed if you want to nap.”

“I’ll be fine, go nap,” he told her and there it was again, that smile that didn’t reach her eyes, that didn’t light up her face, that was a mask to her sadness. “Rey,” he said sharply. “What’s going on?”

But she just shook her head a fraction of an inch, closing her eyes. She got up from her seat at the kitchen island, rounded it, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m fine,” she said, sounding the opposite of fine. 

Then she disappeared.

* * *

“Your  _ girlfriend’s _ sweet,” Jannah said with a twinkle in her eye. Her hair was natural these days, huge and curly, and she was wearing sunglasses shaped like stars, even though it was dark outside. 

“Shut up,” Ben growled at her.

“How’d you meet her?”

“My car—” Ben started, but he hadn’t heard Rey come up behind him and she began to say “Accident.”

Jannah’s eyebrows shot up as he and Rey looked at one another. “Car accident,” Rey said at once and he watched her spin a lie. “He didn’t break right and rear-ended me.”

“That’s not what happened,” Ben replied sharply.

“Yes it is,” Rey smiled, and he couldn’t say anything because the twinkle was back in her eye. “And you tried to stiff me on your insurance information. I remember, Ben Solo.”

“Was this when he was a Republican?” Jannah asked with a laugh.

“Yes,” Rey said at once. “I think I threw a drink in his face when I learned that.”

“You definitely threw a drink in my face. More than once.”

“I like her,” Jannah said, and her lips curled into the same catlike smile she’d inherited from her dad. “You should keep her.”

“He should,” Rey agreed and her arm was around his waist again, looking up at him, and for the millionth time that day, his mouth went dry at the way she was looking at him. “But I’ll leave you to convince him of that, because he doesn’t really listen to me.”

“I listen to you,” Ben protested. “All the time.”

But Rey had already slipped away towards the food table. She was  _ obsessed  _ with the kugel, which didn’t surprise him because it was the ultimate comfort food and his mother had a good recipe where you whipped the egg whites and suddenly it became light and fluffy which was not a norm for kugel. 

“So real talk,” Jannah said and he turned his attention back to her. “Did you pay her or something?”

Ben looked around. There were a lot of people within earshot but none of them seemed to be paying attention to him and Jannah—at least now that Rey had disappeared. He and Jannah in cahoots was nowhere near as exciting as Ben Solo with a girlfriend who actually put her arms around him in public.

“No, she’s a friend,” Ben told her. 

“You have friends?” Jannah joked and Ben rolled his eyes. 

“Haha. Very funny.” And a little too true. “Anyway, she said she’d pretend with me since I asked and I  _ really _ didn’t want my mom to get to...you know. What you said she was going to do.”

He expected Jannah to keep teasing, expected her to poke fun at the fact that Ben was lucky his single friend was so hot, but instead, her face grew almost somber. “Pretending. Sure.”

Ben frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That she doesn’t have to be looking over here to see if the hot girl in the sunglasses is gonna steal her man, but that’s exactly how she’s looking. Don’t—” and Jannah grabbed his arm so fast that it disrupted his turning to see for himself “—look.” She let go of him quickly. 

“How do I know you’re not jerking me around?”

“Because she’s coming this way again.” And sure enough, there was Rey, a plate of kugel in hand, positioning herself close to Ben. 

“This is so good,” she told him, and there was an edge to his voice that startled him. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Do you think your mom will give me the recipe?”

“If she doesn’t, I’m sure I can get it out of her,” Ben replied and without really thinking about it, he rested his hand against the small of her back again. He liked holding her there. It felt like he was anchoring himself when he did. Or maybe anchoring her?

“Hope one day I can find a girl who puts a dopey smile on my face the way you do for him,” Jannah said and she gave Ben an  _ extremely  _ knowing smile and Ben saw the way that Rey’s face changed, relaxed, brightened.

“I hope so too,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

“If this asshole did, there’s hope for us all,” Jannah joked and Rey’s cheeks went even pinker. “I mean, come on,” and she turned back to Ben. “I’ve  _ always _ had better game with the ladies than you did. This isn’t fair. This is the Solos showing up and pretending they know what they’re doing all over again and somehow ending up with my dad’s car.”

“My dad won that car fair and square.”

“He cheated,” Jannah huffed.

“He cheated a cheater. I’d say that makes the playing field level.”

“Children,” Rey intoned, trying to sound long-suffering, but just sounding amused. 

“Has he told you about the car?” Jannah asked.

“He has told me about the car,” Rey said, and she couldn’t hide the laughter bubbling up out of her chest now.

“When did I tell you about the car?” Ben asked.

“At the thing.”

“Can you be more specific?” 

“The thing when you were picking me up from the airport and we got stuck in traffic for a car show? And you said these were all people like your dad who were too obsessed with—” And he remembered. Remembered because it was right after his dad had died and he’d been sort of numb for a long time. And Rey had been there with him, holding his hand, not letting him be alone as the foundations of everything crashed down around him.

“Ben?” Rey’s hand was back in his, squeezing it, pulling him back to the present. 

“Yeah, I remember now,” he said slowly.

“Dibs on signing your ketubah,” Jannah said and Ben turned to face her, panic on his face. “Solo boys fall hard and fast. That’s what dad always said, and he was right.” She leaned forward and patted his cheek. “Now I’m going to go get some of that honey cake before it disappears.” 

Ben’s face was on fire. He felt hot and cold and he did whatever he did when he was out of sorts—he looked at Rey. Rey who could steady him even when the world was falling apart, Rey who didn’t let him get away with shit, and who was holding his hand, and who had braved people making fucking jokes about ketubot because he’d never brought a girl home ever, who would be the subject to Jannah’s loving shit-stirring, and who was now having to choose between holding his hand and eating more of her kugel and was choosing him.

“They love you a lot,” Rey told him quietly. “They’re all so happy you’re here.”

“They’re happy  _ you’re _ here,” he replied. “Me...well, they tolerate me because family’s family and community’s community.”

Rey shook her head. “They’re glad you’re here. But you’ve always been bad at recognizing when you’re wanted.”

“Look who’s talking,” he said. It came out a little harder than he intended and he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

Her eyes were too bright as she looked up at him—like she was going to cry again. 

“Rey?”

“It’s fine,” she said again and her hand was gone from his. She took another bite of that kugel. 

“You keep crying,” he pointed out. “I don’t think that means you’re fine.”

“Just—not now, ok? Not with…” she moved her head from side to side as she took another bite and he understood.  _ We’re surrounded by people. We have to put on a show. Not now, but maybe later. _

The party continued. People drifted in and out, they ate and drank and laughed. Wedge Antilles showed him pictures of his trip to Greece on his phone, Mon Mothma spent a good twenty minutes grilling him about his career (which was better than when she’d spent a good hour grilling him on his politics) and all-in-all, Ben almost felt at ease. More at ease than he’d felt at one of these since his dad died. He wasn’t even entirely sure that he could chalk that up to Rey because for a good portion of it, Rey was chatting with other people across the dining room, eating fruit and desserts and drinking wine and smiling that bright smile of hers.

“She keeps looking at you,” Jannah whispered in his ear and Ben almost jumped out of his skin because Jannah had crept up behind him. 

“Look,” he said quietly. “We’re—”

“Adorable together,” Jannah said.

“Oh don’t you start getting ideas in your head,” he hissed hotly at her. 

“Me? A thinking woman with her own ideas? Whatever gave you that impression?” She rolled her eyes. “Just saying—you should keep her if you can. It’s not every day you’d find someone who has the balls to stand up to Luke on your behalf when they’re supposed to be trying to impress the family.”

And he jerked his head around, looking at Rey. For the first time since she’d arrived, her face was stern, hard, her jaw jutted out. There was no plate of dessert in her hand; she’d set it down to cross her arms over her chest.

“That can’t be what they’re talking about,” Ben muttered.

“Yeah, no. What else could it be?”

Ben wracked his brains. Luke and Rey—they had a whole host of things to get on about. Her work was in a similar field, they liked similar books and television programs, they even had a similar taste in music. The only thing that he could fathom them getting in a tiff about was… well… him.

“She’s good,” Jannah continued as he just stood there, watching. There was a lump in his throat now.

_ Yeah _ , he thought.  _ She is. _

How she’d gone from throwing a drink in his face to looking like she’d throw a drink in his uncle’s face on his behalf, he didn’t even begin to understand. Trying to understand it made his breathing go shallow, made that lump in his throat get even bigger, so he turned back to Jannah.

“How’s your dad? I’m surprised he’s not here?”

For the first time all night, Jannah’s face got serious. “I think it hurts him to come to stuff like this without Han.”

Ben nodded. He could understand that. Everything would be different if his dad were here. He wondered what his dad would make of Rey.  _ He’d love her,  _ he thought.  _ If mom’s already delighted by her, dad would be quietly marking his calendar for grandkids.  _ His dad always loved the people in his life so deeply, cared about what was right, but constantly questioned what the parameters of right even were. Dad hadn’t batted an eyelash during Ben’s Republican phase.  _ Your politics are shit, kid, but I also trust that you won’t forget how to be good. You’ve got a good heart in that chest of yours. Listen to it. _

And he had, in the end.

“He’s got the biggest heart of anyone I know,” he heard Rey say. She didn’t shout it, didn’t say it so loudly that it would stop all conversation in the room, but it pierced right through to Ben’s ears and a moment later she came to stand with him, her arm around his waist again. He wrapped his arm around hers. 

“You ok?” he asked her quietly.

“Fine.” She sounded indignant. Angry. He squeezed her closer to his side, and it felt almost like he was breathing the air a little differently with her there at his side.

_ You’ve got a good heart in that chest of yours. Listen to it. _

* * *

“I like her,” his mother said when he was helping bring an empty apple plate into the kitchen. “I think you’re good for each other.”

“After less than a day?” Ben asked.

“Oh, that’s not less than a day,” his mother replied. “She said you met a few years back, didn’t you?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah, a few years back. She didn’t much like me at first.”

“Well, she likes you now,” Mom said and she rubbed his back. There was a lightness to her face he hadn’t seen in years. “And you carry yourself so differently, Ben. You really do. Having someone who loves you, and who you love. I’ve never seen you look so light. And I know it’s nerve-wracking, coming home like this. And I don’t want you to think I’m going to pressure you to move things faster just because I’m getting old and want grandchildren that I don’t have to share because I won’t have in-laws—well planned there—” she paused, smiling before her face went serious again, “but I hope you both come back to visit sometime soon. Not just for holidays. I want to see your lives grow together. I want to see you keep growing.” She reached up and cupped his cheek. 

“I’ll try, Mom,” he said quietly. “It’s…” and he couldn’t say early days because that would be a lie; he couldn’t even say that it was complicated because that wasn’t what he told her, not what she’d believe. So he left the sentence dangling and his mother smiled knowingly before heading back to the party.

Ben made to follow her, but before he turned into the dining room, he caught a glimpse of Rey in the living room. She was sitting on the couch, her eyes closed, her head tilted back. He smiled. Sure, there were still people in the dining room, and some people—like Rabbi Threepio and Artoo—had only just arrived. But it was about that time that Rey turned into a pumpkin, even though the clock in the hallway hadn’t yet struck nine.

He crossed to the couch and settled down next to her, putting his arm around her shoulder. “You’re falling asleep,” he whispered when she stirred with that noise in the back of her throat again.

“I’m not,” she replied, eyes still closed and he laughed quietly. 

“Bedtime, come on.”

He took her hand and pulled her to her feet and together they went upstairs. Jannah had left twenty minutes ago, which meant there was no one left at the party he wanted to talk to. 

“You were a hit,” he told her after Rey had gone off to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. They were in their matching pajamas again, sitting on his bed. “Thanks so much for doing this.”

“My pleasure,” she said. Her face was guarded—or maybe just tired. She had taken out her contacts and was wearing her glasses and he never had as good a read on her when she was wearing her glasses for some reason.

“What was going on earlier?” he asked.

“Nothing, really,” she tried.

“Don’t bullshit me.” He did his best to sound stern and supportive at once. 

“I’m not—it’s nothing. It’s really nothing.”

“If you keep saying that, I won’t tell my mother we broke up and you’ll get a pesach invite in the spring and she’ll start dropping a lot of hints about what she wants our kids to be named.”

“Would that be so bad?” 

For a moment, he thought he might not have heard her properly. Surely she hadn’t said that. Except her eyes had gone bright and her cheeks had gone pink and her jaw was set the way it was when she was trying to convince him of something and his breath left his body. His lungs just fucking abandoned him and he couldn’t breathe anymore.

“No,” he said quietly. “It wouldn’t.”

“Because I’ve had such a lovely weekend, Ben,” and it was like she hadn’t heard him, like she was so prepared for the fight she didn’t realize that there wasn’t anything to fight about, and Ben just swallowed as she barrelled on. “I really have. You’ve always been so good to me, and so kind, and you listen, and you care, and I don’t know—this felt natural.” Her chest was heaving, she was breathing heavily, as though staving off tears again. “It didn’t feel like I had to fake anything at all because I  _ do _ care about you so much. And it broke my heart a bit that you might be faking it and—”

“I said no, you know. It wouldn’t be bad,” Ben interrupted. 

“I—oh.”

The pink in her cheeks turned red and Ben took her hand. “It felt natural for me too,” he whispered. “I don’t really get  _ why _ you’d—”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Want you? Ben, you’ve come so far since we first met. You’re so kind, and warm, and I knew that if I did this with you, you wouldn’t let me fall. You’d have my back because we’re already a team. I like being a team with you. I want to keep being a team with you.”

“You really don’t have to convince me of this,” Ben said, his lips curling up into a smile. “I’m the last person you have to convince.”

Rey snorted. “Actually, you are—because everyone else was convinced that we’re already practically married. You’re the only one who was behaving differently this whole weekend. Even Jannah said that I shouldn’t let you go.”

“Jannah comes from a long line of shit-stirrers,” Ben grumbled. “But she’s right here. I shouldn’t let you go. I don’t want to let you go.”

And Rey’s lips widened and her eyes brightened and she leaned forward to press her mouth to his.

The smile on her lips tasted sweeter than apples and honey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought this chapter was a love letter to a kugel recipe, you might be right. It's--specifically--a love letter to my friend David's kugel recipe, which he has given me permission to post below:
> 
> 1 lb egg noodles  
8 eggs (separated)  
1 cup sugar  
1 lb sour cream  
1 lb cottage cheese  
1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs  
1/2 cup butter
> 
> Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit  
Mix sugar, sour cream, cottage cheese, and butter in a bowl. Separate egg whites. Put yolks into mix of sour cream etc.  
Boil the noodles and mix them with the sour cream etc. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.  
Fold egg whites into mixture of sour cream etc. Pour into either casserole dish or large pan. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs on top.  
Bake for 45 minutes. Serve.
> 
> Shana Tova everyone!


End file.
